"But maybe that patience was always overstated. Throughout its history, China has lumbered into disaster after disaster, costing untold sums in lives and treasure (e.g. the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Beijing's war with Vietnam). "

China has a few thousand years of history but the examples which the authors gave are all recent and hardly justify the phrase "throughout its history". In fact, the whole paragraph is silly, which country hasn't gone through man made disasters?

"But since the baseline defense budget is now at a historic post-World War II low"

At least the authors are fairly straight forward with the intention of the article. It's all about convincing that tax payers why should they continue to fork all that money to protect "US interests" in the forms of US military contracts abroad. The whole deal with the super congress and budget cuts have the defensive industry scared, so the lobbyists are going through the "think tank" route to scare the tax payers. Neoconservative think tanks like AEI (which the authors belong to) are the same people who chanted "Iraq has WMD" in order to justify the invasion, then go on to blame Bush for messing up the war instead of itself for spreading a silly if not proven flawed ideology.

The authors repeatedly wrote "stability" where they clearly meant "US hegemony."

You expect me to take this seriously? It boils down to "OMG, China is scary!" and as a result recommends increasing US defense spending. We already account for around half of the world's defense budget, yet these yahoos want us to spend more? How about a more common sense approach involving thinking about what our real strategic needs are and rethinking procurement so we stop pissing away billions on gold-plated weapon systems designed for a threat that is long past like the F-22.

It's long past time for the U.S. to stop pretending to be the world's sheriff. We can't afford it, and I don't want to be in the position of having to choose between Los Angeles and Taiwan.

Getting involved in everyone else's business has gotten us 9/11 (stationing troops in Saudi Arabia, bias towards Israel), the first and second Arab Oil blockade, Gulf War I and II, the Afghanistan war, ballooning Homeland Security, DOD, and intelligence spending that has wasted trillions and resulted in the deaths of about 5,000 Americans and tens of thousands of others.Time for all the Rambo wanna-bees to get a job - if anyone would want them.

Just look at how absurd the title of the article is.

Look at it.

Heard Thomas Friedman interviewed today, making a point from his new book,"That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World We Invented and How We Can Come Back." One reason we fell behind since 9/11: the U.S. was chasing the wrong competitors. We have squandered our national treasury on wars, borrowing from China to wage them. It's not Al Qaeda we should have spent so much time and effort on, but rather on being aware of how to keep up with China and other emerging/emerged nations.

Yes, the U.S. needs a good system of security worldwide, but we don't need the cumbersome,money-sucking military we have. The majority of service people are sitting somewhere in a cubicle surfing porn and waiting to go home from a lame desk job. War has diminished the U.S. And it has cost us more than lives and the trillions (much in waste and fraud). Thank you, Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama, Mr. Gates ... and a special thanks to Mr./Doctor/General/Lecturer/Scholar/Warrior/ Master Spy/Professor/BS-er Extraordinaire David Petraeus. One brutal little dude.

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Please provide documentation for your contention that "baseline defense budget is now at a historic post-World War II low." Your 3.5% figure is presumably based on FY 2011 Defense authorization of about $550B relative to a GDP of around $15.1T. Compable numbers for 1999 -- around $260B and $9.4T, respectively -- give 2.8%. In fact, it appears to me that defense expenditures were significantly lower from the mid-90s through 2001 as a share of GDP. Please don't expect readers to accept your broader claims if you can't get the straightforward stuff right.

As for perspective, while I wouldn't put much faith in china's good intentions or prospects for reasonable behavior in a crisis, I would suggest that it would be useful to ponder for a moment how the US would react if China were conducting naval excercises within 200 miles of our shores.

Consider also that the US nuclear arsenal is well over 10 times the size of China's, with much more robust delivery systems. A nuclear arms race with China is simply not a near-term prospect. As for a "regional" nuclear arms race, what countries are you referring to, exactly?

the best child porn hereAs for perspective, while I wouldn't put much faith in china's good intentions or prospects for reasonable behavior in a crisis, I would suggest that it would be useful to ponder for a moment how the US would react if China were conducting naval excercises within 200 miles of our shores.

Consider also that the US nuclear arsenal is well over 10 times the size of China's, with much more robust delivery systems. A nuclear arms race with China is simply not a near-term prospect. As for a "regional" nuclear arms
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Avoiding Armageddon with China
Posted By Dan Blumenthal, Mark Stokes, Michael Mazza Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - 1:51 PM Share

It is good news that James Traub, a highly regarded journalist and writer, may be startled out of his belief that China is a "status quo" power, based in part on a paper we wrote.

We hope that more writers of Traub's caliber will be similarly startled by China's growing menace. The truth is that like every rising power in history (including the United States) China wants to change rules, territorial delineations, and laws written while it was weak.

Traub notes that China is "famously patient and slow-gestating" and thus it "seems odd" that it "would have so radically, and so quickly changed its posture to the world." But he is intellectually honest enough to allow for the possibility that its famous "patience" may have been "an elaborate show, or a transitional phase."

But maybe that patience was always overstated. Throughout its history, China has lumbered into disaster after disaster, costing untold sums in lives and treasure (e.g. the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Beijing's war with Vietnam). Certainly as China re-emerged as a power it had its chance to "bide its time and hide its capabilities" as Deng Xiaoping instructed. But instead, it decided to build a highly destabilizing military (see the last decade of Department of Defense reports on China's military power, the latest of which is here) and has proceeded to rattle its saber against Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and, most troublingly, the United States. It has now created the conditions for the encirclement is so fears.

It is not only former Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg who, as Traub writes, "noted that China's "enhanced capabilities" and "overbroad assertion of its rights" in the South China Sea had caused Washington and its allies to "question China's intentions." America's diplomatic and military leaders have expressed similar unease. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a very sober man, noted his concern about China's military to the Washington Post. The Chinese military, he said, "clearly has the potential to put our capabilities at risk... We have to respond appropriately in our programs."

And speaking on China's military buildup last June, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen stated, "I have moved from being curious to being genuinely concerned." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also spoken on the matter. Responding to years of Chinese harassment of U.S., Japanese, Vietnamese, and Philippine ships, last year Clinton broke new ground by declaring at a summit in Hanoi that "The United States, like every nation, has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia's maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea." This is a diplomatic way of telling China that we will continue to exercise our forces inside its exclusive economic zone, consistent with international custom, and we will ensure that our partners in Asia are able to resist Chinese bullying.

This brings us to what seem to be Traub's biggest problem with the paper: that doing what Gates and Clinton proclaimed we need to do (respond with our own military programs and ensure freedom of navigation and open access to Asia's maritime commons) is expensive. True enough. National security is an expensive endeavor. But as our own history shows (pre-Pearl Harbor, pre-Korean War) military weakness in the face of new threats are more expensive still, in lives and in treasure.

The paper does not cost out the capabilities the strategy needs. But since the baseline defense budget is now at a historic post-World War II low of 3.5 percent of GDP stabilizing it at 4 percent of GDP, as Traub says GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants, seems like a good start. We do identify some of the capabilities needed for the strategy (as Traub points out, Blumenthal expanded upon the point in recent congressional testimony). A good way out of strategic insolvency -- a condition a country enters when it is not funding the commitments it has made -- would be to properly resource the plans already put out by DOD. But troublingly, the Obama administration is not funding the capabilities the military says it needs to fulfill the missions assigned to it by its civilian masters.

For example, the U.S Navy needs 328 ships compared to the current 284, but the Congressional Budget Office has declared the goal to be out of reach. More specifically, the nuclear attack submarine fleet will certainly come under additional strain. The Navy's stated requirement is 48 such boats. Yet if the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan does not receive additional funding the Navy will have substantially fewer than the 48 subs. There is also no provision in the plan for surging production to meet China's own growing sub acquisitions. China has fielded on average more than two subs annually for 16 years. It now has more than 60 attack subs in its fleet, with more in the pipeline. And unlike the U.S., which spreads its fleet among the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, China operates all of its boats in East and Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile ,according to its own estimates, the U.S. Air Force will have a tactical aircraft shortfall of an astounding 800 planes in the next few years. The Navy and Marine Corps are projecting a 200-fighter shortfall in the same time period. Compare this with China's relentless build-up of fighter aircraft, which includes a new stealth fighter that once again surprised the China-watching community (including us).

DOD assessed its own shortfalls before the Obama administration and the Congress put as much as $1 trillion more in defense cuts on the table over the next ten years. Such cuts would mean much more than failure to execute current DOD investment plans. If enacted the new cuts will mean that every system the military says it needs in the future will be in peril (e.g., a new bomber, space systems, perhaps even carriers).

Proponents of defense cuts never answer this question: What are the costs of not properly resourcing American plans and strategies? Which commitments should the United States back away from, and how? Taiwan? Japan? Open access to the South China Sea? Is there a way to elegantly cede Asia to China? Is there a way to do so peacefully, without catalyzing a multi-player nuclear arms race? Can we thrive as a nation if we need China's permission to access Asia's trade routes?

Traub compares the paper to the thinking of such Cold Warriors as Herman Kahn and uses such Cold War terms as "roll back." But our paper decidedly stays away from a Cold War analogy. The Cold War is too simple a metaphor to describe Sino-U.S. relations. China is an economic partner, and Washington is deeply engaged in a diplomacy that tries to convince China to peacefully take its place as a great power. At the same time, we are balancing China's power and hedging against a more bellicose China. The paper lays out a strategy for successfully doing the latter two (many others have written at length about engagement's requirements). It is precisely because the Sino-American security competition is so different than the Cold War that we identify the dire need for sophisticated statecraft. We need to get the mix of engagement, balancing, and hedging right.

The balancing and hedging strategy should involve options to avoid what Traub rightfully describes as "Armageddon." We call for a myriad of conventional options short of striking the nuclear-armed PRC, in the hope that such a strategy enhances deterrence in the first place and avoids Armageddon should deterrence fail. The strategy aims to slow escalation rather than quicken it.

The idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy -- of turning China into an enemy by treating it as one -- is like a unicorn; it is a make believe creature that still has its believers. The United States has done more than any other country to "turn China into a friend" by welcoming it into the international community. Alas, China has not fulfilled this U.S. "prophesy of friendship." Instead China has built what all credible observers call a destabilizing military that has changed the status quo by holding a gun to Taiwan's head even as Taiwan makes bold attempts at peace, by claiming ever more territory in the South China Sea, and by attempting to bully and intimidate Japan.

Traub asks whether our allies and partners will be willing to participate in an "anti-Chinese coalition," as he describes it. As the paper says, all allies, partners, and potential partners are already modernizing their militaries in response to China. And they will continue to do so regardless of whether the U.S. pursues what Traub would see as an "anti-China" strategy. Even laid-back Australia has plans to double its submarine fleet -- it is not doing so to defend against Fiji.

The paper argues that it is time for the United States to offer more serious assistance so that matters do not get out of hand. A strong U.S. presence and commitment to the region's security can help avoid a regional nuclear arms race, for example. The United States can be a force multiplier by providing the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that only Washington possesses, and by training, and equipping our arace, what countries are you referring to, exactly

Gaining hegemony in Asia is one thing; but China’s primary purpose in building up its military is to quell the growing backlash against it over a wide range of its illegal and unfair business activities and economic policies, particularly those it uses against the West. In this regard its copy-cat stealth fighter is a case in point. Whatever real military value it will eventually have it serves an unintended and highly ironic visual metaphor for the way China deals with the world—if you have something of value we will copy it. The freedom to steal your technology or copy one of your finished products and then sell it back to you is a big part of the ‘freedom’ China wants to keep and accrue to itself. In Beijing’s eyes its military build-up is an insurance policy for its way of doing things—as long as you don’t retaliate against them for the way they do business everything will be fine. It’s encouraging that many people are beginning to take their heads out of the sand about China’s real intentions.

Much-celebrated Nixon-Kissinger embrace of China to counter Soviet Union in 1972 has come back to haunt The United States.

Afterall China was a pariah country in the world just like today’s North Korea until Nixon’s 1972 visit. All the West European and East Asian countries stayed away from China following the US lead until 1972 and embraced China after Nixon’s visit. While US would not give MFN status to Soviet Union (remember Jackson-Vanik amendment?) unless Russia shed Communism, it had no problem giving it to China’s Communist dictators with a capitalist mask. Trade with China expanded by leaps and bounds during 12 years of Republican rule beginning in 1981. After campaigning against butchers of Beijing in 1992 elections, even Bill Clinton became enthusiastic supporter of trade with China once he took lessons in foreign policy from Nixon in early 1993 during a special Whitehouse-arranged meeting. US also promoted China to a super power status by accepting it as a permanent UNSC member.

Had it not been for that Nixon embrace in 1972, China’s rise to super power status would have been far more slower with all the US, West European and East Asian markets closed to cheap Chinese products. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s technological progress would have been far slower in the absence of West’s technology transfers. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s military progress would have been far slower in the absence of huge forex reserves that China accumulated from the massive exports of cheap Chinese products and China used those forex reserves to acquire latest military technology.

Now China has U. S. by the tail - U. S. businesses are hooked to huge profits that cheap Chinese products generate for them as a walk through any Wal-Mart, Sears, Home Depot and Macy’s filled with cheap Chinese goods prove and the U. S. government is hooked to huge investments that China makes in U. S. treasury bills from the sales of cheap Chinese products to U. S. businesses. It is a win-win for China and loose-loose for U. S. in this free trade. It has been said as a joke that if U. S. ever goes to war with China, U. S. would have to ask China to send boots for U. S. soldiers to go and fight against Chinese soldiers!

If capitalist U. S. had an upper hand against Communist Soviet Union in the first cold war, then creditor China has an upper hand against debtor U. S. in this second cold war.

Little could Mao or Deng have imagined that by wearing a capitalist mask, their followers will beat capitalists at their own game. Lenin used to say that ’capitalists will sell us the ropes with which we will hang them’. With West selling such proverbial ropes in the form of technology transfers, Chinese Communists have proven that Lenin saying quite prophetic.

The balancing and hedging strategy should involve options to avoid what Traub rightfully describes as "Armageddon." We call for a myriad of conventional options short of striking the nuclear-armed PRC, in the hopebest microwave oven that such a strategy enhances deterrence in the first place and avoids Armageddon should deterrence fail. The strategy aims to slow escalation rather than quicken it.